Digital communication

Digital communication channels

Digital marketing involves a multi-channel online communication methodology focused on reaching a specific audience using mobile and stationary digital devices: smartphones, tablets, any stationary digital executive and information devices connected to them through channels such as the Internet, cellular, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and other wired digital communication systems.

New communication channels

While the principles of marketing in the digital age and marketing technology on the set of elements is little different from the usual set of elements used by marketers, but the channels through which marketing communication between sellers and consumers, between market partners, in the real world and the digital world differ significantly.  

What are “communication channels” in marketing?

The existence of a link between a consumer and a seller, and the channel through which this connection is made, is a prerequisite for all communication marketing activities. The existence of such a link and channel allows for information, listening, management and dialogue. The channel of communication is the material bearers of messages, technical devices which give the means to the seller and the consumer to create and perceive the message.

The communication channel in marketing is both the route of the most effective delivery of messages and digital goods from the seller to the consumer and vice versa, as well as, the means and methods of delivery most effective for this channel.

Multiple channels and integrated communications

Companies and consumers are simultaneously engaging multiple channels of communication. At any given time, the most effective communication channel is used, but throughout the dialogue multiple communication channels are engaged – some information is received and transmitted through one, and some is used to effectively convey other messages.

Analysts at Gartner Research predict that by 2025, companies that use more than four digital channels to interact with consumers will be 300% more efficient than “one-” and “two-channel” competitors. What does this mean? It’s all the same marketing and classic – marketing should be comprehensive and use all communication channels available to the company to communicate with consumers. This dispels the common myth of some digital marketers that such channels as “social networks can provide communication” and that only one ad on, say, Facebook is enough to provide the required audience coverage and the required number of contacts with consumers. 

Digital channels of communication

The most notable changes that digital technology has brought to the overall marketing system have to do with the development of new communication channels:

  • Internet
  • Social media
  • Personal communications
  • Media hosts
  • Cloud storage
  • Digital broadcasting
  • Geo-services
  • Smart devices
  • POS terminals
  • Digital offline advertising
  • Digital Art

1. Internet – promotion on the Internet:

  1. Own Web resources – presence in the digital environment (business cards, profiles);
  2. Mentioning on other Web resources:
  • Mention without links;
  • Links to own Web resources; 

      3. Search engines (search engine marketing):

  • Ranking by Search Engines;
  • Search Engine Advertising;
  • SERM;

      4. Online Trading;

   5. Social Media;

    6. Digital Media:

  1. Digital (Internet, cable, satellite) broadcasting:
  • Digital TV;
  • Digital Radio;
  1. Video Hosting Content;
  2. Music streaming;
  3. Podcasts;
  4. Electronic audio books.

    7. Server-based and cloud-based digital data storage;

    8. Distributed computing systems (blockchain);

2. Geomarketing – digital geoservices (electronic maps, geo-location and  geo-targeting services);

3. Mobile marketing – personal online communications that provide:

  • Voice communication (telephony, voice search, voice control),
  • Non-voice communications (messengers, email);
  1. Interactive communications:
  • Internet games;
  • Quizzes and Quizzes;
  • Polls and Votes;
  • Internet digital editors;
  • Slideshows;
  • Time Lines;

4. Real World Digital Devices:

  1. Smart devices (not per se, but the ability to remind you: to renew subscriptions, buy supplies and parts, service);
  2. AR devices;
  3. Digital terminals:

1. POS terminals (sales, payment and acquiring terminals);

2. Information terminals;

3. POP-terminals (points of presence: digital showcases, including interactive,    information stands, navigation services);

4. Terminals on access devices (ACS terminals) 

5. Means of identification and personalization devices with mobile terminals (smart watches, digital passes, payment terminals);

  1. Devices for reproducing digital media obtained from digital broadcasting catalogs:

1. Smart-TV monitors;

2. TV set-top boxes;

3. Devices for audio playback of digital content;

  1. Digital Advertising Devices in the Conventional World:

1. Digital Advertising Monitors (Indoor-, Outdoor-screens);

2. Light projectors (LED and laser)

3. Interactive surfaces: (showcases, mirrors, interactive walls and floors),

4. Digital advertising on real-world digital devices (TVs);

5. Smart Home systems and devices;

  1. Game consoles / consoles;
  2. Voice Assistants;
  3. Digital art (music, photography, illustration, 3D modeling and design);
  4. Digital recording systems:

1. Smartphone Cameras;

2. Video cameras;

3. Security cameras

4. Drones and Copters;

5. Stream Cameras;

Digital communication

Internet as a communication channel – the channel and methods of communication between two or more communicators, mediated by computers connected through communication channels and means of switching into a single system for the exchange of messages and user access to the information resources of this network, stored distributed on the computers of communicators. 

Digital media (from Latin communicatio – message, transmission, from Latin medium – intermediate, mediator) – dissemination by digital means of specially prepared messages representing social, commercial and personal information. Media-communication means: hosting and streaming platforms that provide access to content repositories in digital form and the ability to play it on demand of users via the Internet on various devices (smartphones, wireless speakers, media players, etc.).

Video hosting is a web service that allows you to download and view video content in an Internet browser, for example, through a special player. In this case, the channel of communication is a video – the totality, the sequence of images in the video: live video, panoramic video, video 3600, stories, stop-motion, streams, broadcasts, clips, movies. Among the platforms, Facebook and YouTube are vying for primacy in viewing live video. Viewers can also watch them on smotrim.ru, Twitter, VKontakte, and Instagram. 

Interactive communications. Users’ interest in interactive communications has emerged with the growth of computing power of computers, the capacity of networks and the possibility of digital technology, which opens up access to the choice of the content that is interesting to the user and the ability to directly influence the consumption of only that information which is important to the user.  Digital content that can be influenced by the user is more attractive than static content prepared by the author and offered for consumption. How this works for marketing purposes will be discussed later and in detail.

Devices and technologies of augmented reality – from engl. augmented reality, AR – “augmented reality”. The main task of such devices is the simulation of what is absent in reality, but what is desired or expected to be received, after the work. Despite the name, these devices technology can both bring virtual data into the real world, and remove objects from it. For example, thanks to technology, today it is possible to demonstrate to the customer goods that do not exist yet, and only planned to implement the work and services.

All the communication channels that have been shaped by digital technologies are used to create and distribute digital goods, to establish a presence in the digital space, to promote and sell both digital and real-world goods.